Table of contents
Summary of recommendations………………………………………………………………. 2
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Addressing concerns around the Thriving Kids delivery model……………………… 4
Importance of building relationships ……………………………………………… 4
Service delivery barriers ………………………………………………………………. 4 - 5
Telehealth support ……………………………………………………………………… 5 - 6
September 25th 2025
Office of the Clerk Assistant (Committees)
House of Representatives
PO Box 6021
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
To Whom It May Concern,
RE: Submission Inquiry for Thriving Kids Initiative
Summary of recommendations
Recognise diversity within communities: Families attending playgroups, First Nations families, and those living in rural and remote areas are not homogenous groups. Service delivery must be tailored to the unique preferences, cultural contexts, and needs of each community. Build relationships before telehealth: Telehealth services are not effective unless a trusting relationship has first been established through in-person engagement. Strengthen and support the workforce: The current workforce is understaffed and lacks the specific knowledge and skills required to deliver the Thriving Kids program effectively in rural and remote areas. For the program to succeed, additional time and investment are needed to: o Enhance cultural safety and embed trauma-informed practices into existing services. o Equip early childhood settings (e.g. daycares, playgroups) with foundational knowledge to identify developmental delays early. o Build relationships with families who are not currently engaged with local services. Embed co-design with lived experience:
Co-design must include Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists,
Physiotherapists, Autistic people, people with disability, individuals living in rural and remote areas, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their families. Their lived experience is essential to shaping a responsive and inclusive Thriving Kids program.
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Addressing concerns around the Thriving Kids delivery model:
Delivering effective services in remote areas—particularly when working with Aboriginal communities—requires time to build strong relationships and trust. Rapport cannot be rushed, and meaningful engagement often develops gradually.
In the Goldfields, we worked with a playgroup facilitator who was visibly anxious and only engaged in brief conversation during our first visit. It wasn’t until after several visits that she began approaching us with questions and concerns, actively seeking support to better meet the developmental needs of the children and families attending the playgroup.
In Port Hedland, it took a week of the therapists being onsite, working directly with the children, before staff members felt comfortable approaching the therapy team with questions. Only then were we able to provide meaningful and relevant support to help upskill educators in understanding typical development and implementing appropriate strategies.
The described Thriving Kids plan relies on building on existing mainstream and community services to support children in settings they are already connected to. While this may be effective in metropolitan areas, its feasibility in rural and remote regions is limited. High staff turnover and persistent workforce shortages in regional Western Australia, present significant barriers to delivery of Thriving Kids.
We also observe that many families are not accessing existing community programs such as playgroups or daycare. Schools frequently report children starting with developmental delays that have not been identified or addressed. This underscores the need for co-design with families to develop a service model that is culturally safe, trauma-informed, and equitable— ensuring genuine engagement and access.
In six months of service delivery, our team has identified the following barriers in regional, rural, and remote Western Australia:
Unfilled positions across child health, allied health, daycare, and education. Example: The Child Health Nurse position in Tom Price has remained vacant for over two years. Limited access to GPs, with some communities receiving visits only once or twice a year. Insufficient training for local staff in child development. We have spent hours training daycare staff on basic developmental milestones. With over 50 years of combined professional experience, our clinicians have never had to provide this level of foundational knowledge to metropolitan staff. Notably, staff were enrolled in a training program with an external provider, which failed to address these basic needs. Lengthy waitlists for public and private services, including diagnostic assessments. Limited awareness of available services such as SSEND, WACHS, NDIS providers, private practices, and Aboriginal Medical Services. This lack of knowledge prevents families from accessing supports they are entitled to.
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Absence of NDIS Early Childhood Partners in many communities. Families are often told by paediatricians to seek NDIS support but struggle to navigate the system. Children with significant delays remain on waitlists because families are unaware that NDIS supports can be accessed prior to diagnosis under current guidelines. Training providers focus on safeguarding but lack time and resources to train staff in child development, early identification, and support strategies. Playgroup facilitators often lack formal training, and as volunteers, have limited capacity to engage in professional development outside of playgroup hours. There is a need for funded supports to upskill these informal supports.
In communities without regular access to professionals trained in child development, mild to moderate delays often go unnoticed.
We attended a playgroup where all the children had a developmental delay which had not been identified by the facilitators.
In one Pilbara location, staff were unaware they could refer children to allied health services through the local health service—even after identifying a child with a language delay. In another location, daycare staff did not recognise that a 19-month-old child who was not walking or talking was developmentally delayed. (These are milestones typically expected by 12 months of age.)
Even trained professionals can be misled when the overall developmental level of a group is low. A child with mild delay may appear advanced by comparison.
This occurred when we were visiting a playgroup in the Goldfields, where the facilitator identified a child as ‘gifted’ when the child was in fact delayed.
The examples above clearly demonstrate that the current skill level of the workforce in the rural areas we service is not sufficient to deliver the Thriving Kids program as described.
While the Thriving Kids initiative proposes using digital and phone-based supports, our experience shows that telehealth is only effective when built on existing relationships. It works best as a supplement to in-person services—used to increase the frequency of support between visits—rather than as the sole method of service delivery. A hybrid model, combining face-to-face engagement with telehealth, is essential to effectively support and upskill rural and remote communities.
Families in the Goldfields and Pilbara have consistently reported that they do not prefer telehealth and are reluctant to engage with services delivered exclusively through digital platforms.
In the Pilbara, we were able to build on the existing relationship between the school and to provide coaching to a school education assistant, enabling her to deliver intervention to 44 children.
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Overall, the existing gaps in skill and knowledge among community-based supports in rural areas present a significant barrier to the successful implementation of the Thriving Kids program. Without targeted investment in workforce development and culturally safe, relationship-based service models, the initiative risks failing to meet the needs of the very communities it aims to support.
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